MSDTC errors when BizTalk Cluster is destroyed

I was working on clustering BizTalk servers in UAT, the MSDTC service was clustered as resource, ENTSSO with BizTalk host instances. I had to later on to destroy the clusters and make a new cluster with different UAT machines. I had removed the resources (MSDTC, ENTSSO), deleted clustered host instances and then evicted the machines and then destroyed the cluster. I was sure everything is cleaned up. One more thing had to be done was to remove the DNS entry from the domain of the cluster.

After that I had to configure single server configuration on the destroyed cluster node. One of the Node had no issues and BizTalk was configured correctly on the other machine I was having MSDTC errors which are quite common and a lot of KB, blog posts and forum topics can be found.

First I tried to remove MSDTC by removing registry entries and then uninstalling and installing the MSDTC. By this I was able to see all the tabs instead of two in the Component Services console. Before I could see only two tabs but after deleting the keys and re-installing MSDTC I could see all the tabs (General, Options, Default Properties, Default protocols, COM Security, MSDTC). When component services management console is opened by the (dcomcnfg), I was getting the same errors by accessing the Default Protocols and MSDTC tab. Also noticed that My computer (icon was red). When I tried to open Default Properties tab I was getting the error below.

MSDTC Service ————————— There are no more endpoints available from the endpoint mapper.

When I tried to open the MSDTC tab I got the error below and it was still showing MSDTC as a clustered resource.

————————— Catalog Error ————————— An error occurred while processing the last operation.

When I went to the server manager I wanted to remove the Failover Cluster Manager feature and I got the error below.

[Window Title] Remove Features Wizard

[Main Instruction] Cannot remove Failover Clustering

[Content] This server is an active node in a failover cluster. Uninstalling the Failover Clustering feature on this node may impact the availability of clustered services and applications. It is recommended that you first evict the server from cluster membership. This can be done through the Failover Cluster Management snap-in by expanding the console tree under Nodes, selecting the node, clicking More Actions, and then clicking Evict.

It is evident that the eviction of the node, removal of the resources and destruction of the clustered was not done cleanly. I didn’t miss anything I guess as the other node was fine after removing the DNS entry from the domain. I found Symon Perriman’s post mentioning that all the nodes has to be online before evicting the nodes and destroying the cluster.

Well thanks to powershell we can force the node to be removed from the cluster.

cluster.exe node –NodeName /force

MSDTC is healthy again and I am able to configure BizTalk on this node. Lesson learnt!